by Jeroslyn JoVonn
March 8, 2024
Oprah Winfrey is getting “personal” about her use of weight loss injectables in a new primetime special coming to ABC.
Oprah Winfrey is getting “personal” about her use of weight loss injectables in a new primetime special coming to ABC.
The billionaire media mogul is sitting down with medical experts and patients for ABC’s “An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame, and the Weight Loss Revolution,” via The Hollywood Reporter. In what will be Winfrey’s first primetime special in three years, the OWN founder will explore “the radical impact” of prescription weight-loss medications like Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Wegovy.
“It is a very personal topic for me and for the hundreds of millions of people impacted around the globe who have for years struggled with weight and obesity,” Winfrey said in a statement.
“This special will bring together medical experts, leaders in the space and people in the day-to-day struggle to talk about health equity and obesity with the intention to ultimately release the shame, judgment and stigma surrounding weight.”
The announcement of the special comes amid Winfrey’s decision to step down from the WeightWatchers board of directors following her admission of using a weight loss medication.
“I realized I’d been blaming myself all these years for being overweight, and I have a predisposition that no amount of willpower is going to control,” Winfrey told People in December.
“The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for. I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself … I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing.”
Just months before, Winfrey faced backlash after citing Ozempic as “an easy way out” of weight loss. While she stepped down from WeightWatchers’ board, she still owns 3,700 shares of the company’s stock and will continue working with the company as a weight loss advocate.
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